


Herb of Grace

by yet_intrepid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Communication, F/M, Language of Flowers, Pre-Series, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2182743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Jess have just resolved an argument and Sam, still hesitant about where he stands, falls back on their tradition—messages encoded in flower symbolism—and waits to face Jess again, Jess in her beautiful terrifying take-no-shit keep-no-secret hide-no-flaw glory that he loves so well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Herb of Grace

Flowers, Sam thinks. They always say that when you apologize to your girlfriend, you buy her flowers.

He doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t know why the argument is lingering in his head even after they’ve sorted it out, even after they’ve both said  _I’m sorry_  and  _I forgive you_. So after classes and a stint in the library, he bikes to a florist’s. “Say it with flowers!” calls their sign, and Sam snorts a little laugh. Yeah, because he doesn’t know how else to say it. Him. The one who spent all his growing-up years insisting on saying things. Now he’s with someone who does say them, and he doesn’t know what to do.

So he goes in, and the bell jingles, and he pulls out the scrap of paper he was scribbling on in the library as the clerk comes to the desk.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, uh,” Sam says, “I need some flowers.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” says the clerk. He looks like he might want to laugh. Sam doesn’t care.

“Some specific ones,” Sam clarifies. “My girlfriend and I, we—well, we decode them. With the symbolism and everything. So I have to be really careful about what’s in it.”

The clerk makes a face. Amusement, condescension. Something. Sam still doesn’t care.

“Purple hyacinth,” he says. “Almond blossoms if you have them, hawthorn or snowdrops if you don’t. Rue. An olive or hazel branch. Ferns will work, too, or lily of the valley.”

“That’s—pretty unconventional,” says the clerk. “You sure you don’t want to go for one of our pre-arranged specials? These here are new designs.”

Sam glares at him. “Look,” he says. “This is important, okay. This is what Jess and I  _do_. And it’s an apology bouquet; it has to mean exactly the right thing.”

The clerk’s eyes widen a bit. “Okay,” he says. “Let me see what we can do.”

——

Sam ends up with purple hyacinth, white snowdrops, ferns, just a touch of rue, and hazel leaves around the outside. He calls Jess’s roommate, Heather, who assures him that Jess is in class but she’s in the dorm room, so he leaves the flowers on Jess’s desk next to a notecard signed with a heart and his name. The rest she can read from the bouquet itself.

“I thought you guys made up already,” says Heather from her position on the bed, surrounded by textbooks.

“We did,” Sam says. “I just—I wanna be sure, you know?”

Heather’s eyebrows contract. “Take it from me, then, because you know she’s got no reason to lie to me. She’s not mad at you.”

Sam takes a deep breath and tries to believe this. Heather’s eyebrows do another thing, a slanty one this time.

“Come on,” she says. “What’s gotten into you? One fight—not even a fight, really—and suddenly you’re all puppy eyes? Where’s badass, resilient, stand-his-ground Sam Winchester disappeared to?”

Sam looks down. He swings out Jess’s desk chair and half-collapses into it. “I just don’t want to screw this up,” he says. “More than anything, I don’t want to screw this up. Jess is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, the best person I know. Everyone tells me I don’t deserve her and I’m just like, hell, you think I don’t  _know_  that?”

Now Heather’s eyebrows rise and one eye squints. “Of course you deserve her,” she says. “When people say that, they’re  _kidding_. God, Sam.”

Sam holds up his hands. “Hey, what was I supposed to think? First time I went out with her, you threatened to cut off my dick if I showed the first sign of being a misogynistic jerk.”

“That’s just girls standing up for girls,” Heather says. “And a roommate’s job, in particular. This is different. You don’t have to earn Jess to deserve her. That would make her a prize.”

“Oh,” says Sam.

“Yeah,” says Heather. “ _Oh_.”

Sam looks at the bouquet again, rearranges some ferns. “That doesn’t mean I’m not terrified of her right now.”

Heather grins. “Be terrified,” she says. “Because when she sees that bouquet, and figures out whatever message you’ve put in it, she’s gonna chase you down and tell you in no uncertain terms why you need to work on your self-concept.”

And Sam laughs, because that’s Jess; that’s Jess in all her beautiful terrifying take-no-shit keep-no-secret hide-no-flaw glory that he loves so well.

“She’ll call,” says Heather, as Sam gets up.

“I’ll be ready,” says Sam.

——

Jess finishes a long afternoon of classes ready to dump her bookbag and just zone out for an hour or two. On the way to the dorm she debates between her young adult novel and convincing Heather to play Uno, and decides on Uno as she goes down the hall to her room.

“Hey,” she says, as soon as she’s swung open the door. “Card games. You, me, now. Yeah?”

“Sure,” says Heather, slamming shut her chemistry textbook. “Uno?”

Jess goes to her desk to get it, and stops short. “Sam came.”

“Yeah.”

She squints at the flowers. “I’ll figure it out in a bit. Uno first.”

They settle on the floor with the cards. Jess shuffles and deals and lays out a starting card, and Heather starts the game.

“Did you turn in that developmental psych project today?” she asks.

“No, that’s Wednesday. Same day as your organic chem exam.” Jess changes the color to blue.

Heather pulls a face and starts drawing cards. “Darn it, I was happy with green there. And yeah, not looking forward to Wednesday. ”

“You’ll be fine,” Jess tells her. “You’re always fine. You’ve got, what, a steady eight-five average? And a third of the class is flunking.”

“Which is not reassuring, really,” Heather puts in, as she finally finds a blue card and they resume play.

Jess laughs. “Well, no. But it means that if you’re doing well, you’re doing it right.”

“Hope I keep doing it right. Draw two.”

“Are we stacking? Good. Draw two yourself.”

“You are way too good at this.”

“I have to keep up with Sam; he’s a monster at cards.”

“And a puppy when he thinks you’re mad. I swear, Jess, I’ve never seen anything so heart-melting.”

“Not that you let on how affected you were, I’m sure.”

“I have to preserve my dignity somehow.” Heather draws again. “Oh hey, wild! Green.”

“Perfect,” says Jess. She lays down her second-to-last card. “Uno.”

“Shit,” says Heather. She considers for a long moment before laying down a red nine on top of Jess’s green nine.

“Sam really doesn’t deal well with conflict,” Jess says, distracted. “He wants to talk things out, but then afterwards it’s like he doesn’t feel the air is cleared. Like he expects me to blow up at him or something. Like…like he doesn’t feel safe.”

Heather nods, but she gestures to the cards. “Before we get to that, Miss Psychology Student, it’s your turn.”

“Oh,” says Jess, and when she checks what Heather played she gives a tiny squeal of triumph and slaps down her last card—red. Heather rolls her eyes good-naturedly and starts picking up the cards; Jess helps her.

Then she resumes. “I just want him to be comfortable and open with me. And I’ve told him that. But when I did, he stared at me like I was speaking, I dunno, Sumerian. Like I was—kinda rare, and valuable, and  _completely_  incomprehensible.”

“Mm,” says Heather, shuffling the cards absentmindedly. “Yeah, when I talked to him this afternoon and told him you weren’t mad, he looked totally baffled. Happy, but not processing.” She gets up from the floor. “You wanna look at that bouquet now?”

Jess grins, feeling herself blush, feeling the fondness spread like a light over her face. “Yeah,” she says, and she goes over to the desk to get it, along with a sheet of notebook paper, her computer, and her favorite flower-symbolism book. She sets the vase on the floor between her and Heather.

“Ferns,” says Heather. “Those are easy, but do they mean anything or are they just filler?”

“Usually fascination, but sometimes other things.” Jess notes down  _ferns_. “I think that’s hyacinth? I know I recognize it but I could be getting the name wrong. Could you search and find a picture, please?”

Heather does, shows it to Jess. “Looks like the same thing to me.”

“Cool, thanks.” Jess writes it down.

“What are those leaves?” Heather asks. “Kinda a weird thing to have in a bouquet. I mean, they don’t look bad, but—leaves.”

Jess bites her lip. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll figure it out once we know what the rest is supposed to mean. And these little white ones, these are, uh—something. I know I recognize the yellow one. It’s an herb. That’s why it smells kinda funny with the hyacinth.”

Heather googles  _herb with yellow flowers_ and finds some pictures. “Rue,” she says, showing her screen again. “It’s rue.”

Jess looks up. “Regret,” she says at once, and then: “We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays.”

“What?” says Heather.

“Ophelia,” says Jess. “From  _Hamlet_. A reference to priests using it in making holy water, centuries ago. So regret, and possibly a request for favor and cleansing and grace. That will help us understand the rest.”

——

Jess calls that evening after dinner, wants to meet up and take a walk. Sam agrees readily and that’s all there is to the phone call.

They meet outside her dorm and she brings the bouquet down with her. She wants to have it when she talks to him.

They just stroll for a bit. He asks about her developmental psych project. She asks if he’s heard from Brady lately and if he got the handlebars on his bike fixed. There’s a stiffness to his posture, the look of someone waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The sun starts to set and they find a bench. He sits farther from her than he has lately, his hands folded nervously in his lap. She reaches out, touches his arm.

“Sam,” she says gently.

She could swear she sees him bite back a flinch.

“Sam,” she says again, her tone clearer and more deliberate this time. “Sam, I’m not angry.”

“I didn’t say you were,” he murmurs.

Her eyebrows rise and she brings up the bouquet from her lap, touching each item as she names it.

“Purple hyacinth. Sorrow, apology, a request for my forgiveness. Which I already said you had, so there’s not any need to apologize again. It’s a done deal, okay?”

He nods, but without looking at her.

“Rue or herb of grace. Basically the same thing, but more regret than sorrow. You think I am very gracious, but remember, I hurt you too and you forgave me. So that makes you gracious too. I mean, do you think I still need to be full of regret?”

He blinks. It’s an obvious no, but Jess still waits for him to say it.

“No.”

“Then neither do you.” She goes on. “Fern. I’m guessing that here you’re going for sincerity rather than fascination or magic. Snowdrops. Consolation, or hope, or hope for consolation. And finally, hazel leaves for peace. Did I get it?”

He nods. He’s still staring straight ahead, sort of leaning forward in a way that’s simultaneously distant and intense.

“Hey,” she says, and she leans forward too in an attempt to get him to look at her. “Sam. The things you’re asking for with this bouquet? Forgiveness and consolation and grace and hope? I’ve already offered them to you. You just haven’t accepted them, and that’s why you haven’t found peace.”

And then he turns his head, turns slowly to face her. His eyes are deep and searching and a little damp, and her heart wells up.

“What are you afraid of?” she whispers.

Instead of answering, he pulls her into a hug and hides his face in her shoulder. They crush the bouquet between them, the hyacinth and hazel and ferns; big salty tears (perhaps his, perhaps hers) splash onto the snowdrops and rue.

“I’m so scared,” he says into her sleeve. “I’m just scared; I don’t know why; I’m sorry. I feel like such an awful person, you being so kind and me not—not receiving. It’s just so hard and I don’t know  _why_ …”

Jess’s hands in her lap pluck a yellow rue flower baptized with a teardrop. She pulls out of the hug to touch it to his lips, silencing him.

“You aren’t an awful person, Sam,” she says. “You’re learning. So give yourself the herb of grace this time, okay? Even regrets over regret can be washed away.”

He kisses the rue blossom and guides it to her lips in turn, like a sacred pact of giving and receiving.

——

On Thursday, a small vase of flowers shows up in Sam’s dorm room. One daffodil: for forgiveness, joy, and new beginnings. A smattering of baby’s breath: for purity of heart. One branch of hazel leaves: for peace.

And one stalk of rue, the herb of grace.

**Author's Note:**

> My rationale for Jess knowing about the rue and holy water is that I headcanon her as being (aside from a bit of a geek) Catholic or at least of Catholic background; this is based on some the appearance of some religious items on her grave in episode 1x2. Sam would probably also be aware of the association due to hunter research, even though rue is no longer used in the blessing of holy water.


End file.
